"A Task That Is From God"

Fox News points out that Sarah Palin did not claim that "Saddam Hussein helped Al Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon," as The Washington Post reported. Fox also points out that Palin did not call the Iraq war a "holy war," as ABC News implied.

However, here's what Palin did say, as Fox reports:

Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God. That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan.

The McCain camp objected to ABC News's treatment of the quote:

"Governor Palin's full statement was VERY different" from the way Gibson characterized it," read a statement circulated by McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.

"Gibson cut the quote -- where she was clearly asking for the church TO PRAY THAT IT IS a task from God, not asserting that it is a task from God.

"Palin's statement is an incredibly humble statement, a statement that this campaign stands by 100 percent, and a sentiment that any religious American will share," Bounds wrote.

Yet here it is Bounds who is performing the spin. The difference between saying that the Iraq war is "a task that is from God" and saying that we should pray that it is "a task that is from God" is pretty trivial. Palin clearly says that the war should be "God's plan." This gives a religious motivation to foreign policy, which should be grounded solely in the national defense of the United States.

Moreover, as I've pointed out, at the same event Palin also said she thought it was "God's will" that she help build an energy pipeline, and she added that political reform "doesn't do any good if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with God."

Palin clearly made the case that politics must be fundamentally based on religion.

Bush's Love

President Bush said the following about the U.S. military in an address regarding Easter: "These brave individuals have lived out the words of the Gospel: 'Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends'."

I have several responses to this.

1. Unlike the mythical Jesus, American soldiers do not arise from the dead.

2. The proper purpose of the U.S. military is not to give U.S. soldiers the opportunity to find heavenly bliss, but to achieve earthly security for the U.S. (including its soldiers).

3. To paraphrase Douglas MacArthur [actually, George Patton], Bush shouldn't be trying to get U.S. soldiers to lay down their lives; he should be trying to get the other bastards (Islamic terrorists and their state sponsors) to lay down their lives.

4. The grain of truth to Bush's statement is that a moral individual can put his or her life at risk, if there's no better option, in order to save a loved one. And obviously soldiers put their lives at risk to protect their country, their loved ones, their way of life, and ultimately themselves. But the point of our nation's foreign policy should be to limit as much as possible the threats and harms to American citizens -- including soldiers. Bush's statement amounts to a rationalization for needless deaths of American soldiers for goals other than national security. And no reference to mythology can hide Bush's gross immorality on that point.

Peikoff's Sixth Podcast

Yesterday Leonard Peikoff released his sixth podcast, in which he answers questions about Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. This time, he took on four main questions. (Again, my summaries are no substitute for the content of Peikoff's comments.)

1. Should one hesitate to become a writer of fiction, if one believes that one could never match the quality of Rand's novels? Peikoff answers that relying on such a "comparative standard" is a "complete error." Instead, if you love the work of some particular field, and if you can produce work of value in that field, you should go for it.

2. Would an isolationist foreign policy with respect to the Middle East make us safer? Peikoff notes that political isolation can work only between regions that are both non-aggressive. Once one side initiates aggression, isolationism is unworkable. Peikoff adds that, in the case of Islamic terrorists, the notion that a United States military presence in the Middle East somehow provoked the attacks is a only a rationalization; the real motive of Islamic terrorists is "hatred of the West."

3. Can one act without an emotional impetus? Peikoff believes not. Every act must be motivated by some "value commitment."

4. Are internet discussions about Objectivism fruitful? Peikoff answers that, while they can be, often they lack philosophical context and rigor. Speaking from my own experience, I look back with embarrassment on much that I wrote "about" Objectivism years ago when I knew very little about it; much of what I wrote was complete nonsense. Readers unfamiliar with Objectivism, then, should bear in mind that many internet forums may radically misrepresent Ayn Rand's ideas, and this can be true of comments coming from detractors as well as (nominal) supporters of those ideas.

I'm really enjoying these podcasts, and I hope that my brief summaries help to point others to them.